Making Language Visible

By Dr. Ruslana Westerlund

Dear content teachers,
you who love the laws of physics —
how gravity pulls planets into orbit,
how light bends,
how energy changes form;

you who love chemistry—
the sudden color change,
the crystal forming from solution,
the invisible bonds holding matter together;

you who love mathematics—
the elegance of a proof,
the symmetry of an equation,
the patterns hidden inside numbers—

when you teach your content,
you teach it through language.

You may not notice the language
because you are surrounded by it.

You are like the fish*
that knows only water
and therefore does not know
that water is there.

The language of your discipline
has become so familiar
that it feels transparent —
as if students can look through it
and see the causality in science,
the preciosion in mathematics,
the chronology in history.

But language is not transparent.

Notice how your discipline
explains the world through zigzag patterns,
carrying familiar ideas forward
to introduce something new;

connects causes with effects through
because, therefore, and as a result;

unfolds mathematical reasoning
from what is known
to what can be determined—
The angles form a straight line,
so their sum is 180 degrees;
since one angle measures 65 degrees,
the other must measure 115;

uses thinking verbs
to guide students through invisible reasoning—
notice, consider, assume, recognize, predict,
and conclude;

turns mathematical actions into precise concepts—
we divide becomes division,
the quantity changes becomes variation,
the two expressions are equal becomes equivalence;

opens the door to other voices through
while that is true
and then closes it with
however, the evidence suggests otherwise;

compresses dynamic processes into nouns—
water goes up becomes evaporation,
objects collide becomes collision;

and invites readers into an argument
through phrases such as
as we all know,
consider what happens when,
and I’m sure you’ve been there too.

These language choices are not decorations.
They are how YOUR discipline
organizes knowledge,
builds relationships,
and makes meaning.

NO, an ELA Teacher cannot teach the CER of science, and all the language of scientific reasoning – you are the keeper and the teacher of that language

No, your ESL/ELL/EL/EALD/ML Teacher with a case load of 72 students spanning K-12 cannot teach all of the language of your discipline, and then send them to your classroom when learned all of it.

When students enter your classroom,
they enter YOUR water.

Some swim confidently.
Some paddle near the surface.
Some use every language they know
to keep themselves moving.

And some are sinking—
not because they cannot understand
the forces, reactions, patterns,
causes, or consequences,
but because the language
that constructs your discipline
is still foreign to them.

Then we say:

Write a CER.
Here is a graphic organizer.
Put your claim in this box,
your evidence in that one,
and your reasoning in the largest box.

But what makes a claim
a claim?

How do I reason
without simply repeating my evidence?
How do I connect
what happened
to why it happened
and then to what it means?

The boxes cannot teach that.

The directions
“support your answer with evidence”
cannot teach that.

The linguistic resources
that build the claim,
connect the evidence,
and develop the reasoning
must be made visible.

They must be noticed,
named,
modeled,
discussed,
jointly constructed,
practiced,
and taught.

Imagine you come to my house
and I show you my sourdough starter.

You watch me feed it.
You add the flour and water.
You stretch the dough
and watch it rise
inside my familiar kitchen.

Then I send you home and say:

I am coming to your house for dinner.
I want a perfect loaf of sourdough.

Good luck.

You have the recipe.
You remember the stretch and fold
But you only had one experience to learn about
shaping, scoring,
or now you “don’t remember” what to do
when the dough refuses to rise.

You participated in the activity once,
but you have not been fully apprenticed
into the microbiology of active live culture and its behavior in new environment.

This is what happens
when we show students an explanation,
give them a graphic organizer,
and then ask them to produce
the language of our discipline.

Dear content teachers,
your students do not need
the intellectual work made easier.

They need the language
that carries that work
made visible.

Invite them into the water,
but do not assume
they already know how to swim.

Show them the currents.
Name the depth.
Practice the strokes beside them.

Then gradually let go —

so they can enter the deep water
of your discipline
with confidence,
with agency,
and with language powerful enough
so they can act in and ON the world with it.

*The fish in the water metaphor is from Pauline Gibbons

Cheering you on,

Ruslana

About the Author

Dr. Ruslana Westerlund is an occasional poet and CEO at Westerlund Consulting, LLC. She works with schools, districts, and educational organizations across the globe to support the implementation of high-quality instruction that integrates language, literacy, and disciplinary learning. She is also an Executive Officer at LLEN North America (LLENA). Her work focuses on making language visible through the Teaching and Learning Cycle, the WIDA ELD Standards Framework (which she co-authored), and evidence-based approaches that provide multilingual learners with high challenge and high support.

Westerlund Consulting LLC is a certified Woman-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE) providing professional learning, curriculum design, instructional coaching, keynote presentations, and strategic consultation in disciplinary literacy, multilingual education, and language-focused instructional design. The company partners with educational organizations to build educator capacity and improve equitable access to rigorous, language-rich learning for all students.